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Luxus for Carrara released! Intro sale price at 30% off.

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  • raypainter_c3ac15a382raypainter_c3ac15a382 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    3DAGE said:
    Hi tuckersaur :)

    Some Carrara shader functions won't work,. but texture maps will.

    things like fractal noise , mixers,. or terrain shaders won't work as expected,. but there are some Lux shader functions, like the Lux Mix, or marble which can be used to create a similar effect,. or you could export the Carrara shader,. to create a texture map, then use that in the Lux shader.

    Thanks 3DAGE.

    That makes sense too. This thing is a blast to play with. So much power. I am creating a scene with caustics now and I will post it soon. This unbiased renderer is amazing for creating caustics because I can keep adjusting the lights until I get the desired caustic effect. That used to be 100's of renders in Carrara to get nothing nearly as impressive.

  • The Pencil NeckThe Pencil Neck Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    Here's a modified version.

    In this one, I changed the Lamp's texture to a Luxus Glass thing. Then I created a sphere vertex object, shrank it down to a small size, and textured it as an Area Light. I put that within the Lamp.

    I also realized I was getting some light leakage from the Luxus infinite light because The Study model has an open end and a few other open holes. To fix that, I just created a vertex object box, removed 1 side so that The Study's windows were still exposed, and placed that around The Study.

    I've got some weirdness I think from that. I think I screwed something up.

    But the Lamp is looking kinda cool. I might mess around with some other things with it and try some different approaches to the glass texture but I'm liking this a lot.

    test005.jpg
    1920 x 1440 - 541K
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    That image is looking great - much more atmospheric!

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited May 2013

    Someone mentioned causstics so I thought I would share my latest experiments in that area. Volumetrics works well too.

    Is there a way to get camera Depth of Field, I know that Luxrender supports it but I couldn't find a way to do it through Luxus.

    GlassSpheresFinal.jpg
    640 x 960 - 77K
    Post edited by PhilW on
  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited May 2013

    thepencilneck said:
    Here's a modified version.

    In this one, I changed the Lamp's texture to a Luxus Glass thing. Then I created a sphere vertex object, shrank it down to a small size, and textured it as an Area Light. I put that within the Lamp.
    ...

    But the Lamp is looking kinda cool. I might mess around with some other things with it and try some different approaches to the glass texture but I'm liking this a lot.


    The color of the lamp seems to match he color of the daylight outside, both look close to stark white... That makes the interior lighting unrealistic imo.

    Have a peak at this color chart. I little tint in the color of lights goes a long way:
    http://3drender.com/glossary/colortemp_F.htm

    Post edited by wetcircuit on
  • The Pencil NeckThe Pencil Neck Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    holly wetcircuit said:
    thepencilneck said:
    Here's a modified version.

    In this one, I changed the Lamp's texture to a Luxus Glass thing. Then I created a sphere vertex object, shrank it down to a small size, and textured it as an Area Light. I put that within the Lamp.
    ...

    But the Lamp is looking kinda cool. I might mess around with some other things with it and try some different approaches to the glass texture but I'm liking this a lot.


    The color of the lamp seems to match he color of the daylight outside, both look close to stark white... That makes the interior lighting unrealistic imo.

    Have a peak at this color chart. I little tint in the color of lights goes a long way:
    http://3drender.com/glossary/colortemp_F.htm

    Great link. Thanks.

    There are three lights in this: the outdoor, the lamp, and then a spot that I put on the character to bring him out. I had put a slight yellow tint to the lamp light, a slight blue tint to the outside light, and then left the spot untinted. I probably didn't tint them enough but I'm always worried about changing the tints of the lights too much because I'm color-blind and I'm afraid I'm going to push it to the unrealistic without realizing it. I'll amp them up next time.

    I've got another version of the picture without the weird shadow blocking that was coming from my vertex object box that I'd put around the room. I hadn't made it big enough so parts of it were sneaking into the room and changing how the lights and shadows interacted.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,543
    edited December 1969

    thepencilneck said:
    Here's a modified version.

    In this one, I changed the Lamp's texture to a Luxus Glass thing. Then I created a sphere vertex object, shrank it down to a small size, and textured it as an Area Light. I put that within the Lamp.

    I also realized I was getting some light leakage from the Luxus infinite light because The Study model has an open end and a few other open holes. To fix that, I just created a vertex object box, removed 1 side so that The Study's windows were still exposed, and placed that around The Study.

    I've got some weirdness I think from that. I think I screwed something up.

    But the Lamp is looking kinda cool. I might mess around with some other things with it and try some different approaches to the glass texture but I'm liking this a lot.

    I think, perhaps, that some of the 'weirdness' could be from the major difference you're seeing in this, more realistic, enclosure. Perhaps?
    It sure looks good to me. I just feel as if the lamp light might need to be a little tad bit brighter, maybe? Not sure - it looks great the way it is - I only get the brightness idea when I focus my attention on the lamp - wanting it to illuminate. Maybe he has the brightness turned down, Dartan. Anyways, I was just remembering back on how bright it was before - thinking that it was supposed to be a fairly bright source of light. That aside, I really love your image - and I really like it when artists, like you, describe how they've come to this point. Thanks for the write-up. I remember, what... the day before yesterday? You were new to Carrara poking around. Look at this image and check out how far you've come in such a short time. Can you see now why I am such a Carrara cheerleader?!!!
  • SphericLabsSphericLabs Posts: 598
    edited December 1969

    Depth of field did not make it. One could edit the file xls file manually and add a couple lines to the camera section, but I will add dof to Luxus for Carrara.

  • Jay_NOLAJay_NOLA Posts: 1,145
    edited December 1969

    To supplement the link to Jeremy Birm's color chart that was posted.

    http://planetpixelemporium.com/tutorialpages/light.html

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    SphericLabs said:
    Depth of field did not make it. One could edit the file xls file manually and add a couple lines to the camera section, but I will add dof to Luxus for Carrara.

    w00t! That would be amazing!
  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited May 2013

    thepencilneck said:
    holly wetcircuit said:
    thepencilneck said:
    Here's a modified version.


    The color of the lamp seems to match he color of the daylight outside, both look close to stark white...

    Great link. Thanks.

    There are three lights in this: the outdoor, the lamp, and then a spot that I put on the character to bring him out. I had put a slight yellow tint to the lamp light, a slight blue tint to the outside light, and then left the spot untinted....
    Didn't mean to sound critical..., and it seems there is a way to unlock the ability to shift the tint in LuxRender but I couldn't get it to be "active"...

    Different renderer = different color sensitivity... With Carrara's renderer it really is just a hint of color... Haven't had enough experience in Lux to know what is what... :/

    Post edited by wetcircuit on
  • Jay_NOLAJay_NOLA Posts: 1,145
    edited December 1969

    I've been working on a FAQ for the plugin. (It is in the Spheric Labs section in that post. I also moved the Zygock entry to the post that follows and continues the 1st plugin post because the Spheric Labs and Clinton’s 3D Creations entries were taking a good bit of room on the plugin post.)


    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15970/P105/#290982

    If you know of any other FAQs that i missed about the plugin, or see any thing i need to fix or add to what I've done please let me know. I'm sure I'm missing some things that need to be added to it.

  • The Pencil NeckThe Pencil Neck Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    holly wetcircuit said:
    thepencilneck said:
    holly wetcircuit said:
    thepencilneck said:
    Here's a modified version.


    The color of the lamp seems to match he color of the daylight outside, both look close to stark white...

    Great link. Thanks.

    There are three lights in this: the outdoor, the lamp, and then a spot that I put on the character to bring him out. I had put a slight yellow tint to the lamp light, a slight blue tint to the outside light, and then left the spot untinted....
    Didn't mean to sound critical..., and it seems there is a way to unlock the ability to shift the tint in LuxRender but I couldn't get it to be "active"...

    Different renderer = different color sensitivity... With Carrara's renderer it really is just a hint of color... Haven't had enough experience in Lux to know what is what... :/

    You didn't sound critical.

    ya freakin wench

    :)

    I keed. I keed.

    To unlock the colors, go to the Light Groups. Then click on Black Body Temperature to unlock the slider or click on RGB to turn on the color picker.

    I have a tendency to use the black body temperature slider in Luxrender but I usually use the color picker inside Carrara for the non-luxrender renders.

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    thepencilneck said:

    You didn't sound critical.

    ya freakin wench

    :)

    I keed. I keed.


    lolol

    Good tip! I can see I have barely started with the possibilities... I once read a 3D book that showed how to render out every light in your scene separately so you could remix them in post.... The tip above (and one earlier about unlocking the limits) should be very interesting to explore...

  • The Pencil NeckThe Pencil Neck Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    holly wetcircuit said:
    thepencilneck said:

    You didn't sound critical.

    ya freakin wench

    :)

    I keed. I keed.


    lolol

    Good tip! I can see I have barely started with the possibilities... I once read a 3D book that showed how to render out every light in your scene separately so you could remix them in post.... The tip above (and one earlier about unlocking the limits) should be very interesting to explore...

    One of the cool things about Luxrender is that you can go to File->Export to Image->Light Groups to Tone-Mapped LDR... and it will ask you for a directory and a file name. Then it will save each light group out as a separate file.

    I first saw this with Reality in Daz and it was so cool that I started rendering out all my images like that manually even when I wasn't using Reality (or Luxus in this case.) Almost everything I do gets rendered out by light (or group of lights) and then manually composited in GIMP as layers. You can screen layers together or burn a layer, you can duplicate a layer to bump up the light from it. It's a great technique.

  • The Pencil NeckThe Pencil Neck Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    I think I've found a bug. It's causing some weird behavior.

    I'm not sure the order that these things are going to attach. But...

    I set my backwall texture to just a red, matte texture as I textured other pieces of this wall.

    Then, I set up the texture on the small computer screen. I've done this a lot of different ways. With the Texture in the Area Light, in the Diffuse of a material WITH the area light, with the Diffuse of different kinds of materials but nothing in the Area Light. And this is about the closest I've gotten.

    What happens is this: I can get the light to show up with the texture map I want illuminated BUT... it lights up something else. Something that's got a totally different and unrelated texture. This happens with almost every area light that I put onto a "group" model... a model with multiple shading domains.

    almostRight.jpg
    1920 x 1440 - 360K
    screenComTexture.png
    673 x 484 - 70K
    backWallTexture.png
    655 x 458 - 37K
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    I have found that when textures auto-convert, if there is a colour in the reflection - even if it is black - the conversion doesn't work. Simply changing this to None in the reflection makes the auto-conversion look good. Please can this be done automatically as it can be a pain to change when there are lots of textures in a given model? Thank you for considering this - and thanks for a great plugin, it works on the whole very well and it is great to have the option of an alternative renderer!

  • SphericLabsSphericLabs Posts: 598
    edited December 1969

    thepencilneck said:
    I think I've found a bug. It's causing some weird behavior.

    I'm not sure the order that these things are going to attach. But...

    I set my backwall texture to just a red, matte texture as I textured other pieces of this wall.

    Then, I set up the texture on the small computer screen. I've done this a lot of different ways. With the Texture in the Area Light, in the Diffuse of a material WITH the area light, with the Diffuse of different kinds of materials but nothing in the Area Light. And this is about the closest I've gotten.

    What happens is this: I can get the light to show up with the texture map I want illuminated BUT... it lights up something else. Something that's got a totally different and unrelated texture. This happens with almost every area light that I put onto a "group" model... a model with multiple shading domains.

    Hmm. I did a few test and have not been able to reproduce this. Can you zip up your .lxs file and send PM a link to it? or even send me your carrara file?

    As a workaround, my guess is that if you put an area light on the thing that is lighting up but that shouldn't and you set the power of the area light to 0, it may work.

  • SphericLabsSphericLabs Posts: 598
    edited December 1969

    PhilW said:
    I have found that when textures auto-convert, if there is a colour in the reflection - even if it is black - the conversion doesn't work. Simply changing this to None in the reflection makes the auto-conversion look good. Please can this be done automatically as it can be a pain to change when there are lots of textures in a given model? Thank you for considering this - and thanks for a great plugin, it works on the whole very well and it is great to have the option of an alternative renderer!

    The idea was to take into account a highly reflective material and auto-convert it accordingly. I will look into this.

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    SphericLabs said:
    PhilW said:
    I have found that when textures auto-convert, if there is a colour in the reflection - even if it is black - the conversion doesn't work. Simply changing this to None in the reflection makes the auto-conversion look good. Please can this be done automatically as it can be a pain to change when there are lots of textures in a given model? Thank you for considering this - and thanks for a great plugin, it works on the whole very well and it is great to have the option of an alternative renderer!

    The idea was to take into account a highly reflective material and auto-convert it accordingly. I will look into this.

    Sorry, I think I have made a mistake in this. The highlight colour was turned right up and I was also having to turn this down - having done some more testing, I think that was the cause of the problem, and that's more an error when Carrara imports the model, rather than Luxus converting the shaders. Sorry if I sent you on a wild goose chase - I'll check my facts better next time!

  • SphericLabsSphericLabs Posts: 598
    edited December 1969

    PhilW said:
    SphericLabs said:
    PhilW said:
    I have found that when textures auto-convert, if there is a colour in the reflection - even if it is black - the conversion doesn't work. Simply changing this to None in the reflection makes the auto-conversion look good. Please can this be done automatically as it can be a pain to change when there are lots of textures in a given model? Thank you for considering this - and thanks for a great plugin, it works on the whole very well and it is great to have the option of an alternative renderer!

    The idea was to take into account a highly reflective material and auto-convert it accordingly. I will look into this.

    Sorry, I think I have made a mistake in this. The highlight colour was turned right up and I was also having to turn this down - having done some more testing, I think that was the cause of the problem, and that's more an error when Carrara imports the model, rather than Luxus converting the shaders. Sorry if I sent you on a wild goose chase - I'll check my facts better next time!

    No problem :)

  • The Pencil NeckThe Pencil Neck Posts: 163
    edited December 1969

    PhilW said:
    SphericLabs said:
    PhilW said:
    I have found that when textures auto-convert, if there is a colour in the reflection - even if it is black - the conversion doesn't work. Simply changing this to None in the reflection makes the auto-conversion look good. Please can this be done automatically as it can be a pain to change when there are lots of textures in a given model? Thank you for considering this - and thanks for a great plugin, it works on the whole very well and it is great to have the option of an alternative renderer!

    The idea was to take into account a highly reflective material and auto-convert it accordingly. I will look into this.

    Sorry, I think I have made a mistake in this. The highlight colour was turned right up and I was also having to turn this down - having done some more testing, I think that was the cause of the problem, and that's more an error when Carrara imports the model, rather than Luxus converting the shaders. Sorry if I sent you on a wild goose chase - I'll check my facts better next time!

    What I've been having to do is to go in and set reflections to none and highlights to black on everything. Frequently, the reflections are set to black so I can usually just grab the reflection and drop it into the highlight and it's fine.

    But when I'm importing large models from Daz, that's a zillion different things to have to go through and re-set. I've been thinking of writing some sort of script to just go through the text files and reset them programmatically. I haven't done any scripting within Carrara so I don't know if that's possible.

    Like you said, though, I think this is a Carrara thing not a Luxus thing.

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    edited December 1969

    Luxus got a news post at http://www.jurn.org/dazposer/

    "Are you a DAZ Carrara user, but jealous of the DAZ Studio and Poser plugins for the free advanced LuxRender 3D renderer? Well, now there’s a new Luxrender plugin for Carrara!"

    Another one at: http://www.digisprawl.com/blog/news/luxus-for-carrara-hits-daz-3d/

    "Not only do you finally have relatively quick and easy access to unbiased rendering, but it comes at just the price of one very affordable plugin. No hundreds of dollars for licensing fees and possible hardware upgrade to CUDA compliant technology, just Luxus for Carrara and LuxRender (free)."

  • 3drendero3drendero Posts: 2,024
    edited December 1969

    Updated the old blog thing with a link to the Luxus FAQ of Jay NOLA:
    http://carraracafe.com/luxus-the-luxrender-plugin-for-carrara-developmentdocumentation-blog/

  • raypainter_c3ac15a382raypainter_c3ac15a382 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    SphericLabs said:
    Steve athome said:
    May I ask as to why there is no "ShinyMetal" material in the exporter?

    http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxRender_Materials_ShinyMetal

    Of course, that is easy to answer. From the spec, http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Scene_file_format_1.0
    shinymetal (deprecated, use mirror+glossycoating or metal2 as needed)

    Is there also a spec for what render render features made it in the plug in? I can't seem to create settings for Ex Photon Map. I can switch to it but I have no place to enter the parameters for the photons. It seems like the render dialogs below should be changing when I switch to this integrator. I am on a Mac running OS 10.8 and using the beta version of Carrara. The same thing happens with SPPM. I'd like to try Ex Photon Map to speed up a caustic render. I've read the Render Settings Wiki several times and I don't have the any of the extra parameters to enter for these other great integrators. Right now I've got six hours plus in a caustic render using Metropolis and bidirectional and I am running 8 cores on a mac mini late 2012. I think those other options would greatly speed up the render and I'd like to experiment with them.

    Thanks.

  • raypainter_c3ac15a382raypainter_c3ac15a382 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    tuckersaur said:
    SphericLabs said:
    Steve athome said:
    May I ask as to why there is no "ShinyMetal" material in the exporter?

    http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/LuxRender_Materials_ShinyMetal

    Of course, that is easy to answer. From the spec, http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Scene_file_format_1.0
    shinymetal (deprecated, use mirror+glossycoating or metal2 as needed)

    Is there also a spec for what render render features made it in the plug in? I can't seem to create settings for Ex Photon Map. I can switch to it but I have no place to enter the parameters for the photons. It seems like the render dialogs below should be changing when I switch to this integrator. I am on a Mac running OS 10.8 and using the beta version of Carrara. The same thing happens with SPPM. I'd like to try Ex Photon Map to speed up a caustic render. I've read the Render Settings Wiki several times and I don't have the any of the extra parameters to enter for these other great integrators. Right now I've got six hours plus in a caustic render using Metropolis and bidirectional and I am running 8 cores on a mac mini late 2012. I think those other options would greatly speed up the render and I'd like to experiment with them.

    Thanks.

    Actually - I just found this and I think I've answered my own question: http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Scene_file_format_1.0#Renderer
    It looks like with this version the renderers handles the parameters automatically when you choose the different surface integrator. Is this correct? What would be a good combo to try for the ex photon setup? renderer/integrator/settings?

  • raypainter_c3ac15a382raypainter_c3ac15a382 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Here's a WIP of my caustic image. Is there a way to see anything in the log to see if the renderer is still finding details. I could clean up those artifacts in post but it seems like it is still finding things about 8 hours in. This is fun to have a new high powered tool with so many features to explore.


    http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2444426

  • raypainter_c3ac15a382raypainter_c3ac15a382 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Hi Spheric

    Error when using sampler and exphotonmap:

    [2013-06-01 23:33:57 Info: 0] Shooting photons (target: 220000)...
    [2013-06-01 23:33:59 Error: 43] Unable to store enough photons in the indirect photonmap. Unable to render the image.

    I can send you whatever you need to debug it.
    It keeps rendering but doesn't create any caustics since it can't store the photons.
    Since I don't have any parameters I can set there is no way for me to limit the photons to something it can handle. I've got 16 G of RAM on this machine so memory shouldn't be the issue.

    Let me know what else I should try.
    Thanks.

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    edited December 1969

    SphericLabs (or anyone!) - I have been having a look at the documentation for Luxrender and trying to put commands in the "Extra Settings" box to try to use the Depth of Field effect, but I am clearly getting something wrong as Lux is reporting a parsing error and not not understanding what I am putting, so it then aborts.

    Could you please give an example of the syntax that would be required?

  • wetcircuitwetcircuit Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    I have a quick (dumb) question that I cannot test right now.... Can I use non-vertice models and still send to Luxus?
    Metaball?
    Spline?
    Achitools?

    Does Carrara convert these on export, or do I need to convert to vertice modeler before trying to render?

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